As far as I'm concerned, Sarah Palin's actions on the campaign trail were so far beyond the pale, verging on McArthy-like, that she could use a little kicking while she's down. But one news cycle is enough - time to move on.

I go fight my way through Wal Mart to bring game home for the younglings, in this soonbite prelude to winter....

only to be caged for gawking gowks to the crier.
That's right, pink ones. Let your young scratch me behind the ear.

Great poem. Say, when are we going to see Heathy's Collected Howlings?

That was just a random mouthfart.

Mouthfart. Now, I thought you just ate Alphabits and then barfed that stuff back out.

Well, it was Campbell's chicken with rice soup, and when the grains spell out letters, it's an ancient warwoof oracular rite. Alphabits don't hold their integrity for long in a simiocanid's stomach, but rice is good roughage to a "primary" carnivore.

As far as I'm concerned, Sarah Palin's actions on the campaign trail were so far beyond the pale, verging on McArthy-like, that she could use a little kicking while she's down. But one news cycle is enough - time to move on.

McCain, on the other hand, bowed out with impressive grace.

Okay, fair enough.

I'm inventing Heathwin's Law here and now though.
I'm coining it.
This is a Geeklore historic day. Summon the guy with the lyre, Homer has to memorize this.
When somebody compares anybody to Joe McCarthy, that tiny black hole-creating particle accelerator machine over there has to

I go fight my way through Wal Mart to bring game home for the younglings, in this soonbite prelude to winter....

only to be caged for gawking gowks to the crier.
That's right, pink ones. Let your young scratch me behind the ear.

Great poem. Say, when are we going to see Heathy's Collected Howlings?

That was just a random mouthfart.

Mouthfart. Now, I thought you just ate Alphabits and then barfed that stuff back out.

Well, it was Campbell's chicken with rice soup, and when the grains spell out letters, it's an ancient warwoof oracular rite. Alphabits don't hold their integrity for long in a simiocanid's stomach, but rice is good roughage to a "primary" carnivore.

I mean, we canids and thropes eat veges and fruit too.

I saw a warwoof with a Japanese menu in his hand

Walking through the streets of Deep Ellum in the rain
He was looking for a place called Noshi Deep Sushi
Going to get himself a big dish of sushi and sashimi
Warwoofs of Dallas, waahoooo.

I don't really go there; I'm a reformed binge drinker and I get sleepy at 9p.m. due to my encroaching middle age.

Plus, "drinking money" now means money for baby formula.

I think I have a canoptic jar of Budweiser in my refrigerator.

Use it for chili, sub the beer instead of water.

Deep Ellum just brings back so many good memories, I got to see Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumkins, R.E.M., The Squeeze, 311 and so many more great bands. Lots-o-women, drink and drugs too, loved my wasted youth.

I don't really go there; I'm a reformed binge drinker and I get sleepy at 9p.m. due to my encroaching middle age.

Plus, "drinking money" now means money for baby formula.

I think I have a canoptic jar of Budweiser in my refrigerator.

Use it for chili, sub the beer instead of water.

Deep Ellum just brings back so many good memories, I got to see Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumkins, R.E.M., The Squeeze, 311 and so many more great bands. Lots-o-women, drink and drugs too, loved my wasted youth.

*YAWN* Well my after-election political hangover is over. I feel better and ready to face the world, despite the sales figures in my office and the stock market plunging.

I would agree that Republicans need to reorganize. I personally am not a Republican, despite my conservative leanings. The GOP will never divest itself of the Evangelicals (no offense to those Evangelicals on the board, I just do not consider religion a political matter).

The backbiting we are seeing right now vis a vis Palin isn't from Obama's people, it is a civil war in that party where the Republicrats like McCain are battling the Neocons for supremacy. Kicking dirt on Palin has a very specific purpose: It makes her less desirable for a 2012 run. I predict we will see quite a bit more of this, as the infosphere will attempt to label her as unfit for office.

What needs to be done is to reimagine politics for the 21st Century. Perhaps some Democrats are saying as they read "That's what we just did!". How? How is Obama any different from any other Democrat? What is he bringing to the table that is substantially different from the normal Democrat playbook? Big government has been pounding away at the issue of poverty for decades in this country. Has the poverty line shifted any? If a program has been in effect for 40 years and accomplished nothing, shouldn't it be reexamined rather than expanded?

There are trends that need to be examined: Where will our jobs come from when manufacturing is overseas/roboticized? White collar is slipping away due to globalization as well. Can we roboticize further without creating a permanant unemployed underclass? Can we visualize what jobs will evolve in the next decade and prepare our youth to fill them?

The environment is a huge issue, but the methods attacking the problem are farcical. Large segments of the world are rapidly approaching US standards of living, and this burgeoning middle class in the Asian countries will demand the creature comforts such living will bring. Can the biosphere handle that? Is there any way to tell these folks, "sorry we lived like this for 60 years and just found out it's kinda wasteful. Can you not do it?" Can we cut this Gordian Knot with new technology?

How do we defend our country as technology allows smaller and smaller fringe groups to wield larger and larger destructive powers? The Bio revolution is at hand, and nano isn't far behind. The destructive potential of these two technologies is staggering. Do we slip further into the Fascist mode and begin recording everybody all the time? Heck, we're already starting to do it to ourselves. Should we look into 'black box' recording chips installed in every person that records their actions for scrutiny in case of a crime? What does say about personal liberty/privacy? Are these concepts even viable with the upcoming technology?

How do we harness the power of computers and interconnectivity to assist us in solving our issues? Will society change radically in the upcoming decades as we rocket towards the Singularity as has been predicited by some like Vernor Vinge? Can we hold it together until then, or will our 'monsters from the Id' destroy us first?

Is it the government's job to bail out everyone who makes a mistake? Doesn't that just guarantee people will do risky things if they know there are no consequences? Sometimes failure is a valuable learning experience. I have learned much by my failures in life. Sometimes life hurts, and sometimes people suffer. But I believe that running a nation on credit cards to save people pain will just delay and exacerbate the inevitable crash.

What is the next challenge on humanity's horizon? Should it be exploration of the Solar System? Exploration of Inner Space via a vastly-evolved Internet? Focus on using new technology to finally break the chains of poverty and opression throughout the world?

I call for a reimagining of politics. Discard the old shibboleths and partisan backbiting. Stop concentrating on who marries who and get to the pressing issues. I want a new party to vote for, one that imagines what the issues will be TEN years from now, and prepares for them. I'm tired of feeling like a trumpet player on the Titanic.

]Interesting reading. According to what I read, I trend towards Paleoconservatism with nationalist and populaist tendencies.

I think some paleoconservatives would be mortified to hear that.

Some paleocons need to get out of the house more and be more open minded. ;p I was once called a communist agent where I live for not subscribe to the idea that the U.N. was a communist body and was plotting to take over the U.S. All because I pointed out that the John Birch Society tract the guy was trying to shove on me was wrong when it said only Soviet communists had been Secretary Generals and heads of the Security Council.

From an outside point of view I think McCains crucial mistake was the election of Sarah Palin as his vice-president. He should have avoided at all costs any impressions that he would continue the mistakes his forerunner had made in plenty. And while Palin is a newcomer (and turned this into an advantage for McCain for a short time) it became clear soon that she represents the worst of the Republican Party (at least for all people sitting on the fence or just having another political position).

I have a hard time seeing how he had much choice. He had to pick a running mate that would some how both appeal to the centre and also rally the increasingly disenfranchised fundamentalist wing of the party. Palin was what was found, young and female might appeal to the centre and yet she had strong fundamentalist beliefs which should rally that branch of the republican party.

Of course in the end her views made it so that the centre abandoned the Republican party but its hard to see what else they could have done.

First, you make an error in what the two expenditures achieve.
Public works programs do in fact have expenditures for labor, materials, tools, and heavy equipment for building roads in national forests and the like.
Massive war efforts however have expenditures for labor, materials, tools, and heavy equipment for building factories, rail lines, power plants, employee housing, and other infrastructure developments.

Second is the long term differences between those two.
Roads in national forests and the like are useful for camping. They develop parks which are pretty. They contribute greatly to low economic recreation. They require continued government maintenance, which places a continued burden on the economy to support them.
Factories and other infrastructure on the other hand remain and can be converted to long term civilian purposes. A tank factory can become a tractor factory, and a bomber factory can become an airliner factory. Even when the government contracts end the infrastructure remains to provide purely public sector economic activity, which can fund both the required infrastructure maintenance as well as additional government services.

Which is a valid argument if one compares the two approaches over the long term but does not really address the argument over the short term. In the shorter term Roosevelt's New Deal is essentially the same thing as World War II in terms of putting people to work by having the government run a massive deficit to pay them and think up varous projects to engage them in. Both should address a recession and either they should both be effective at pulling a country out of a recession or neither should be able to do that.

Also, while I see your point with building factories and such as being beneficial over the long term I think your underestimating the value of infrastructure in terms of highways and bridges etc.

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the Public Treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the Public Treasury with a result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy always followed by dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence:

I see this quote a lot but don't think it actually holds water. So far as I can tell its just not how the voters behave generally. In general we view the government as a kind of business, a co-op that your forced to join if you will. Governments that mismanage the money are seen as doing their job badly while those that appear to acting in a fiscally responsible manner generally are perceived as doing their job, those that go on a bender with tax payer money are usually perceived as doing a bad job. The voters don't agree on what the priorities are and they might well not agree on how much money the government ought to get to do its job (how high taxes should be) but very few of them advocate anything that really resembles voting themselves money.

In fact you'll find, if you do a poll, that people generally vote for governments that are seen to be running the economy well - and they do so even if they personally have experienced a downturn.

Same deal with those engaged professionally in business' that do very well when everything goes into the crapper economically. Such people personally benefit in a bad economy but its not how they'll vote. They vote for a government that is expected to run the country effectively even though they'll make less money in periods of economic optimism then they make during periods of economic pessimism.

Wouldn't infrastructure projects tend to be inherently be more transient? I mean you build a bridge in one state, then move to another state to build a bridge. You are not creating a stable environment for those workers. Being on the move, means other businesses that could grow from the funds given to these workers are not having time to set up shop and/or to expand.

Bush did do a number on the contry and the Republicans have payed a price for it. However, in four years Obama and the Democrats will not be able to run the "blame Bush" playbook that they have been using since 2004. I maintain that one of the things that helped Obama win was the fact that he was able to successfully make the John McBush argument to the American people.

Well the party thats seen as messing things up always has a steep hill to climb. Those in the centre that actually change their party of choice from election to election generally punish a party that is seen to have messed up and reward one that is believed to have done a good job. Better for everyone if thats the case too. If your party screws up you get tossed out on your ass...hopefully that encourages most parties to try not to screw up.

But kicking someone when they are down is Chicago politics. That's the type of politics we need now.

That's hardly fair. It's not Obama's people that are kicking her, it's McCain's people that said she didn't know Africa was a continent and stole tens of thousands of dollars of clothes.

But nobody is even bringing up that Obama had visited 57 states and hoped to visit the other two as well, or that Joe Biden thought that Bush should address the nation on television like FDR did in 1929. Everyone says stupid things from time to time, so why should we focus only on Sarah Palin's gaffs? Shouldn't the things the president and vice-president elect "didn't know" be more important than what the governer of Alaska struggled with?

I just saw an article that stated that despite all the talk of how energized and excited people were about this election, voter turnout was down from 2004. According to the article 122.2 million people voted in 2004 while only 121.4 million people voted in the 2008 election. It also said that many Obama voters decided to for him because they believed he was a Reagan-style fiscal conservative. It is an interesting statistic, don't you think?

Wouldn't infrastructure projects tend to be inherently be more transient? I mean you build a bridge in one state, then move to another state to build a bridge.

Fortunately, pretty much everyone has a point of their lives when they are capable of working like this, going from state to state, building up capital and work experience for the day when they will want to settle down (for those who have the nest-building gene, some people *never* seem to want to settle down...), and even if only a tiny percentage of the workers want to move around for a few years, preparing for a more sedentary future of accumulating stuff and reproducing, every state that needs a bridge / dam / highway will likely have young people and / or out of work people that can take on that work. Most likely the ones willing to 'follow the work' will end up becoming the team leads and shift supervisors, who recruit and coordinate the new local work-crews when they hit a new state.

If the money goes to local workers, it's likely to stay in the local economy, as these bridge-builders go on to buy homes and cars and marry their sweethearts with the money they made. If the money goes to transient workers, the local economy still benefits from the new infrastructure and the money that the transient workers spend on local resources (food, blow, hookers, yes, I'm kidding) while they are present.

It's a win-win, from a local perspective.

Depending on the size and infrastructure status of the area, a work-crew could permanantly work in one area, with no transient workers (which tend to scare insular folk anyway) required. It's not like Detroit is *ever* going to run out of rusted-out, broken-down crap that needs fixing up (or bulldozing down, or whatever).

I don't really go there; I'm a reformed binge drinker and I get sleepy at 9p.m. due to my encroaching middle age.

Plus, "drinking money" now means money for baby formula.

I think I have a canoptic jar of Budweiser in my refrigerator.

Use it for chili, sub the beer instead of water.

Deep Ellum just brings back so many good memories, I got to see Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumkins, R.E.M., The Squeeze, 311 and so many more great bands. Lots-o-women, drink and drugs too, loved my wasted youth.

Who uses water in their chili?! Infidel!

Beer, even old beer, is best enjoyed whilst eating chili. Not in its creation.

Old beer is acceptable when parboiling babyback ribs before smoking them with apple and cherry wood.

Fortunately, pretty much everyone has a point of their lives when they are capable of working like this, going from state to state, building up capital and work experience for the day when they will want to settle down (for those who have the nest-building gene, some people *never* seem to want to settle down...), and even if only a tiny percentage of the workers want to move around for a few years, preparing for a more sedentary future of accumulating stuff and reproducing, every state that needs a bridge / dam / highway will likely have young people and / or out of work people that can take on that work. Most likely the ones willing to 'follow the work' will end up becoming the team leads and shift supervisors, who recruit and coordinate the new local work-crews when they hit a new state.

Right, they move on, and there is no long term economic growth in the community. Even worse, locals could have started making long term plans (buying homes and starting families) on the premise of making the same money they are making while the project is going on. Once the project is done and the money is gone, those people could be in even worse shape than they were before (now have a mortgage and/or family to support).

Set wrote:

If the money goes to local workers, it's likely to stay in the local economy, as these bridge-builders go on to buy homes and cars and marry their sweethearts with the money they made.

Exactly, and if there isn't a long term growth of jobs, those people might very well be in worse shape then before. Local businesses start to expand and suddenly there is a lot less money, now they are over extended.

Set wrote:

If the money goes to transient workers, the local economy still benefits from the new infrastructure and the money that the transient workers spend on local resources (food, blow, hookers, yes, I'm kidding) while they are present.

Yes, but nobody builds a long term model on some short term infusion of cash. How many cities that host the political conventions base their entire long term models those single events? Short term infusions are nice, but the long term health must be built on more stable foundations.

I just saw an article that stated that despite all the talk of how energized and excited people were about this election, voter turnout was down from 2004. According to the article 122.2 million people voted in 2004 while only 121.4 million people voted in the 2008 election. It also said that many Obama voters decided to for him because they believed he was a Reagan-style fiscal conservative. It is an interesting statistic, don't you think?

Very interesting. Especially since some voted more than once. ;-)

The stat is made even more telling because all I kept hearing on election day was how voter turnout was SO MUCH LARGER than previous years. Perhaps yet another case of the media trying to sensationalize a story? Not that they'd ever do that...

I just saw an article that stated that despite all the talk of how energized and excited people were about this election, voter turnout was down from 2004. According to the article 122.2 million people voted in 2004 while only 121.4 million people voted in the 2008 election. It also said that many Obama voters decided to for him because they believed he was a Reagan-style fiscal conservative. It is an interesting statistic, don't you think?

Very interesting. Especially since some voted more than once. ;-)

The stat is made even more telling because all I kept hearing on election day was how voter turnout was SO MUCH LARGER than previous years. Perhaps yet another case of the media trying to sensationalize a story? Not that they'd ever do that...

I saw some stats somewhere that said the Republican turnout was terrible, could it be the numbers are bad because a big chunk of them stayed home that day?

I watched that Fox interview and all it came across to me was that they were looking for somewhere to place the blame. That's how we work in america, it's not just circumstance, it's someones fault. In this instance it's Palin's fault, even though two days earlier they were saying how she energized the party and helped bring women dissapointed in clintons un-fair treatment, now it's well after her couric interview is the time that mccains numbers started slipping and people in his camp who didn't like her say that she was woefully uninformed.

I just saw an article that stated that despite all the talk of how energized and excited people were about this election, voter turnout was down from 2004. According to the article 122.2 million people voted in 2004 while only 121.4 million people voted in the 2008 election. It also said that many Obama voters decided to for him because they believed he was a Reagan-style fiscal conservative. It is an interesting statistic, don't you think?

Very interesting. Especially since some voted more than once. ;-)

The stat is made even more telling because all I kept hearing on election day was how voter turnout was SO MUCH LARGER than previous years. Perhaps yet another case of the media trying to sensationalize a story? Not that they'd ever do that...

I saw some stats somewhere that said the Republican turnout was terrible, could it be the numbers are bad because a big chunk of them stayed home that day?

Maybe. Again the media made it seem like it wasn't worth voting in anything but a 'swing' state. Silly reason to sit on your butt, but people can be silly.

But nobody is even bringing up that Obama had visited 57 states and hoped to visit the other two as well, or that Joe Biden thought that Bush should address the nation on television like FDR did in 1929. Everyone says stupid things from time to time, so why should we focus only on Sarah Palin's gaffs? Shouldn't the things the president and vice-president elect "didn't know" be more important than what the governer of Alaska struggled with?

Not that I expect for a moment that you'll actually consider this answer, but:

When Obama said 57 states, he was clearly tired after several days of hard campaigning. He meant 48, and pretty much everyone knows it. Jumping all over his case would, to most reasonable people, make the person attacking look rather foolish. In fact, I think it makes you look very unreasonable and sort of goofy just bringing this up as if was comparable. The only people who want to interpret this as lack of knowledge as opposed to number mix up due to fatigue are ridiculous people.

Biden's gaffe was a bit more groan-inducing, but quite understandable. It was a clear example of running off at the mouth and speaking extemporaneously. It's the sort of unscripted mistake one makes when one is on a roll. And Biden's point was fundamentally sound, he just mixed up 1929 with 1933, and television with radio -- and old as he is, Biden was still born after the dawn of the Age of Television. Biden was in such a rush to score a point that he didn't stop to make sure he wasn't sticking his foot in his mouth.

Neither of these comes close to the sort of troubling ignorance that Palin is supposed to have shown off-camera, when being prepped by her handlers. Forgetting that FDR was addressing people on radio when every politician has been using television for the last 60 years is a far cry from not knowing what countries are in North America (especially given that she's been to all three of them).

So nobody is bringing those things up because they have a sense of proportion which ideological supporters of Palin may lack.

But nobody is even bringing up that Obama had visited 57 states and hoped to visit the other two as well, or that Joe Biden thought that Bush should address the nation on television like FDR did in 1929. Everyone says stupid things from time to time, so why should we focus only on Sarah Palin's gaffs? Shouldn't the things the president and vice-president elect "didn't know" be more important than what the governer of Alaska struggled with?

Not that I expect for a moment that you'll actually consider this answer, but:

When Obama said 57 states, he was clearly tired after several days of hard campaigning. He meant 48, and pretty much everyone knows it. Jumping all over his case would, to most reasonable people, make the person attacking look rather foolish. In fact, I think it makes you look very unreasonable and sort of goofy just bringing this up as if was comparable. The only people who want to interpret this as lack of knowledge as opposed to number mix up due to fatigue are ridiculous people.

So when Obama makes a mistake, a glaring mistake which was done in public, is excusable, but a supposive mistake that Palin made in private is unexcusable. Interesting. So there is zero chance that if Palin did make a bonehead comment in private, it was due to fatigue as well? Fascinating.

So when Obama makes a mistake, a glaring mistake which was done in public, is excusable, but a supposive mistake that Palin made in private is unexcusable. Interesting. So there is zero chance that if Palin did make a bonehead comment in private, it was due to fatigue as well? Fascinating.